The Future of Home Heating? What Bellway's Future Home Teaches Us

Are We Heating Buildings When We Should Be Heating People?

For years, I've been surveying homes across Shropshire and Mid Wales, and one observation keeps resurfacing: most people only occupy a small proportion of their home for much of the day. Yet our heating systems behave as if every room is equally important, equally used and equally deserving of 19–21°C.

The work being carried out at Bellway's Future Home, inside the University of Salford's Energy House 2.0, has made me question this even more deeply. Their findings align closely with what I see every day in real homes.

What Is Energy House 2.0?

Energy House 2.0 is one of the most advanced housing research facilities in the world. Inside a giant environmental chamber, researchers can recreate snow, driving rain, high winds and temperatures down to –20°C. This allows entire homes to be tested under controlled, repeatable conditions.

Bellway's Future Home sits inside this chamber, acting as a testbed for new construction methods, heating strategies and comfort technologies. One of the technologies being explored is far infrared heating — and this is where my own field experience and the research findings start to overlap.

The Problem With Conventional Heating

Whether a home uses natural gas, heating oil, LPG, electric heating or heat pumps, the principle is the same: heat the air, warm the room, hope the occupants feel comfortable. But in practice, a huge amount of energy is spent heating empty bedrooms, hallways, corners of rooms, ceiling voids and rooms barely used during the day.

From my EPC work, I can confidently say that many households heat twice as much space as they actually use.

• Families cluster in a few key rooms
• Spare bedrooms stay unused for days
• Hallways are heated purely because radiators are there
• Large open-plan spaces are expensive to heat evenly
• People often feel cold even when the thermostat says 20°C

The Background-Plus-Radiant Strategy

One of the most compelling ideas emerging from both the research and my own observations: maintain a lower background temperature throughout the home, and deliver comfort only where people actually sit, work or relax.

This is exactly the kind of approach being explored in the Future Home — and it mirrors what I've long suspected from real-world surveys.

Why You Can Feel Warm at 14°C

Most people have already experienced the answer. Think of a cool spring day: the air might be 12°C, but when the sun hits your skin, you feel warm. Step into the shade and the warmth disappears instantly. That's radiant heat.

Far infrared heating works the same way. It warms people and nearby surfaces directly, not the entire volume of air. This is why someone can sit comfortably in a T-shirt under an infrared panel even when the room temperature is far lower than expected.

Real Running Costs: What the Numbers Actually Look Like

A 300W infrared panel, when positioned well and controlled properly, typically averages closer to 200–250W per hour due to cycling. Using a typical UK electricity price of £0.25/kWh:

• Living room comfort panel — 5 hrs/day, 120 cold days: ~240 kWh/year (£60)
• Home office 300W panel — 8 hrs/day, 100 working days: ~240 kWh/year (£60)
• A 300W panel = roughly three old 100W incandescent bulbs — same power draw, but keeping you warm instead of lighting the room

Based on £0.25/kWh. Actual costs vary with tariff and usage pattern.

Why Infrared Is Particularly Good for Conservatories

Conservatories are one of the most challenging spaces to heat. They typically have large areas of glazing, minimal insulation, high heat loss, cold air sinking from the glass and temperature swings throughout the day.

• Radiators heat the air — but warm air rises and escapes quickly through glazing
• Heat pumps rely on stable, insulated environments — conservatories are the opposite
• Infrared warms people and surfaces directly, unaffected by draughts or cold air sinks
• Delivers instant comfort without trying to heat the entire volume of air
• Works even when the room is poorly insulated

This is why a high-output infrared heater like the Mirrorstone 3000W Helios is often the most effective and efficient way to make a conservatory usable in winter. You're not fighting the building. You're simply warming the person.

Whole-House vs Localised Infrared: The Cost Comparison

Infrared becomes compelling not because electricity is cheap, but because you're heating the person, not the building.

Find Your Perfect Far Infrared Heater

Choose the heater that matches how you actually live.

The Bigger Picture: What the Research Tells Us

For decades, we've believed that comfort requires every room to reach the same temperature. But the evidence — both from controlled research and from real homes — suggests something different:

• People don't use every room equally
• Comfort is influenced heavily by radiant heat, not just air temperature
• Heating the whole building is often unnecessary
• Localised comfort can reduce energy use without reducing wellbeing

Infrared heating won't suit every home, and it isn't a miracle solution. But as part of a background-plus-radiant strategy, it offers a genuinely interesting alternative. Perhaps the future of home heating isn't about making buildings warmer. Perhaps it's about being smarter about where comfort is actually needed.

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